Hungarian Historical Review 5, no. 3 (2016): 487–508 487 http://www.hunghist.org Saint Martin of Tours, the Honorary Hungarian 1 Levente Seláf Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest St Martin was one of the most important hagiographical igures of France in the Middle Ages. Because of his Pannonian origins, he was also an important saint for the Hungarian kings and for the monks of the abbey of Pannonhalma, Martin’s supposed birthplace in medieval times, where his cult was the strongest in Hungary. Martin’s connection to Pannonia, which became part of Hungary after the settlement of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, was not totally ignored in France, where Martin’s cult took root. In the late twelfth century, the Historia septem sanctorum dormientium, a curious hagiographical story invented to support a new cult of the seven hermit saints of the abbey of Marmoutier, claimed that St Martin of Tours descended from the royal family of the Huns or Hungarians. Hungarian scholars investigated the origins and the spread of this motif in the early twentieth century, but on the basis of a mistaken, much earlier dating of the Historia. In this essay, I establish the exact relationship and chronology of the known texts containing the motif of St Martin’s royal and Hungarian origins. Moreover, I offer a systematic survey of the saint’s medieval French biographies, showing how limited knowledge of this motif was outside the texts descending directly from the Historia. At the same time, I examine a hitherto unedited Old French legend contained in a single manuscript (Paris, BNF fr. 1534), a legend which constitutes an addition to the corpus of texts referring to Martin as a Hungarian prince. Keywords: St Martin, hagiography, Hungarian-French cultural connections, Historia septem sanctorum dormientium, Conte de Floire et Blancheleur, dynastic sainthood. St Martin and Hungary St Martin of Tours was one of the most popular holy igures of France in the Middle Ages, and his cult was widespread in the Christian world. Thanks to his irst biographer, Sulpicius Severus, one of Martin’s disciples, we know a great deal about the major milestones of his life. Born in Pannonia in 316 as the son of an oficer of the Roman army, he was converted in his early youth to Christianity. After serving as a soldier, he became a monk and a disciple of St Hilary of 1 In parallel with the redaction of this study I prepared an article in Hungarian on Old French legends about St Martin, containing more citations of medieval sources and adopting a somewhat different approach. It will be published in a volume dedicated to the 1700 th anniversary of St Martin. The main arguments of the two texts are the same, but they are not identical.